Tottenham boss Mauricio Pochettino: Hugo Lloris interrupted Fernando Llorente deal
MAURICIO POCHETTINO knew his decision to snatch Fernando Llorente from under the noses of Chelsea was a good one when negotiations were interrupted by a text from his captain.
Fernando Llorente joined Tottenham on deadline day
“Hugo Lloris was in the national team and sent a text to me,” Pochettino revealed. “‘Gaffer, it’s true about Llorente?’ I said, ‘Yes, we sign Llorente’. He said, ‘Wow, fantastic player’. That is the impact that he has on the changing room.
“All the players respect him. Then they started to meet him, saw how he is – very warm, very friendly – it was fantastic. It’s a big impact.”
Previously Lloris, closing in on 100 caps for France and the national team captain, had pretty much carried the can of being the experienced professional to help mould the young talent that was being deployed in front of him.
With Llorente, though, the Tottenham dressing room now boasts a World Cup winner and former European champion, who has the added bonus of spending a year with Swansea during which he established himself as a proven Premier League goalscorer.
And ahead of the trip to Everton today, it emerged this week that Pochettino has been tracking Llorente’s progress for much longer than even he anticipated.
“He said to me on Wednesday he made his debut against me – it was January 12, 2005,” Pochettino said. “It seems he remembers it better than I do!
“He remembers it very well but I told him there is only one thing that I remember, ‘You didn’t score!’ ‘That’s true,” he said. ‘It’s unbelievable’.”
Away from the watchful eye of Argentina’s uncompromising stopper in that 1-1 draw between Athletic Bilbao and Espanyol nearly 13 years ago, Llorente scored a hat-trick in his very next game and went on to establish himself as a consistent scorer in both Spain and Italy before hitting the net 15 time in 33 Premier League appearances for Swansea.
He may turn 33 in February – a long way from the age of most of Tottenham’s recruits – but in a summer when the market went mad, his £12m acquisition looks another astute piece of business from Spurs chairman Daniel Levy.
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Mauricio Pochettino added a number of players to his Tottenham squad on deadline day
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“It is about opportunity in the market,” Pochettino said. “You have different profiles in your head, different names and then you can get them or you cannot. You have to be flexible in your ideas.
“It is true that balance is most important. Not all experienced players can bring what Fernando can bring to the team. It is not because you are 32 or 33 that you are great. Sometimes you are 33 and struggle but Fernando was a fantastic profile and when we had the possibility to sign him we moved very quickly.
“He will bring to the team and the squad great experience – he won the World Cup with Spain. Then when you saw him in training from day one it was like a 16 or 17-year-old going to training with the first team for the first time.
“That is massive because that energy is fantastic and a very good example for everyone. He is a very good person and at Swansea last season he scored 15 goals, he can repeat the same with us. We really believe he can help us to achieve the things we want to achieve.”
Everton boss Ronald Koeman remains eager to bring in a top striker in January but has challenged his young attackers to come up with the goals in the meantime.
The Toffees sold Romelu Lukaku to Manchester United for £75m in the summer but failed in their pursuit of Arsenal striker Olivier Giroud.
Koeman is understood to be weighing up whether to go back in for France striker Giroud when the window reopens.
However, the Dutchman admits he will have to put his faith in the likes of Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Sandro Ramirez, along with Wayne Rooney, in the interim.
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Dominic Calvert-Lewin has featured heavily for Ronald Koeman's Everton
“We need productivity. We lost 25 goals – that’s a lot,” Koeman said. “We need to find that between a number of players and that is difficult.
“We will give more opportunities and more chances to the strikers we have in the team.
“If we get our option one in, then maybe it is more difficult for Dominic and Ramirez, but we have to understand Ramirez is 22 and Dominic is 20.
“Come on, it is Premier League, not junior football, and they need time to adapt and they need time to improve.”
